Ascent Trip Report

A cold morning with a small cover of snow on the ground is the ideal bushwacking weather, so we decided to take in a few County Highpoints north of Saint-Jerome.

MONTCALM HIGH POINT ..... a short woods track/bushwack from the end of Rue Boisjoly, south of Saint-Calixte Nord ...... 1km, 30 minutes RT.

Rose and I traveled north on Hwy 15 from Montreal to exit 45 at Saint-Jerome, where we picked up 333 north to Saint-Hippolyte. At the church and the flashing light stayed straight to the the village of Lac-de-l'Achigan at the north side of Lac de l'Achigan. At the the bridge and Avenue 388, continued straight over the bridge on the main road towards Saint-Calixte for 5.7km to a left turn on Rue Boisjoly (on the way passed the large sign "Municipalite de Saint-Calixte" and the entrance to "Domaine du Beauvoir"). Drove to the end of the road at .7km, parked, this is the TH.

On the right of the TH (set back) is a house where I inquired about accessing the Highpoint. The gentleman, with a beautiful huge/extremely friendly Massif dog, told me that he owned the property and that he had no problem with me going to the top. He didn't know that this was the County Highpoint, he told me of a woods track leading to the top area. He didn't want me to use his name, concerned that too many people would come to this very quiet area. I assured him that this wouldn't be the case, "Don't worry, there aren't too many people in County Highpointing".

From the TH the Highpoint is at 315 degree magnetic compass. Straight ahead, north, there are a number of large plastic barrels, the unused woods track starts to the left and winds/climbs in the general 315 degree direction to the summit area (one short steep section) arriving at the north side of the summit at less than half a kilometer. The highpoint is 40 meters to the left (south), past a large rock at a 2 meter high steel stake, I added orange flag tape. My GPS read 45.97377, 73.94038, the PB coordinates puts the spot at a lower elevation.

Near-by (south) is the small peak "Montcalm High Point-South", which I decided to take-in and add it to the PB library before moving on to the next County, La Riviere-du-Nord.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The TH is on the road Lac-de-l'Achigan/Saint-Calixte-Nord (located .7km past the entrance to "Domaine du Beauvoir" or about .6km before Rue Boisjoly), at a snowmobile trail xcrossing .... 2 wooden posts with a chain barrier, plus a green sign "Canada National Trail Coalition". The summit is to the west of the TH.

From the TH I walked northwest 100 meters to a right (north) on a woods road, in a short distance it bends left and heads/winds generally west 300 meters to a right bend (Canada trail sign just ahead), where a trail leads left 50 meters to a fork, bear right and continue/climb northwest 150 meters to the top and a Hunter Shooting Tower. Start your bushwack generally southwest to the summit at about 400 meters, open woods with good footing, easy going.The highpoint area, all wooded with no views, is fairly obvious, I chose a spot with a GPS reading of 45.96465, 73.94467. I followed my snow tracks back to the Tower.